1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and information processing method, and program storing medium, and particularly relates to an information processing apparatus and information processing method, and program storing medium, wherein contents distributed over networks such as the Internet can be listened to, or downloaded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, contents data such as music, movies, etc., has been recorded on recording media such as CDs (Compact Disks) and DVDs (Digital Versatile Disks), and sold to users in such forms. However, in recent years, contents data distribution services which do no use recording media are becoming commonplace, wherein a contents vendor prepares a download site on the Internet, and uses use a personal computer or the like to access the download site of the contents vendor, download desired contents data, and pay the vendor the price of the contents.
The user uses software having browser functions to access the download site (a WWW (World Wide Web) server) of the contents vendor and listen to a sample of desired contents, and in the event that the user likes the contents, the user can download the contents via the Internet. In the case of music data, music data is saved on WWW servers in various compression formats, such as MP3 (MPEG Audio Layer-3), ATRAC (Advanced TRansform Acoustic Coding).
In the event of downloading a file such as contents data from a WWW server, a display window 1 such as shown in FIG. 1 is displayed. The user can check the check button 2 and press the OK button 4 so as to execute the program on the WWW server without receiving the program from the WWW server on the Internet, or can check the check button 3 and press the OK button 4 so as to receive the program from the WWW server on the Internet and save it at a certain location on the hard disk of the user's personal computer.
In the event that the user checks the check button 3 in the state that the display window 1 is displayed, and presses the OK button 4, file downloading starts, and a display window 11 such as shown in FIG. 2 is displayed.
Also, in the event of playing contents data for listening to (e.g., audio data) on the WWW server, the user needs audio data playing application software in addition to the software with browsing functions. In the event that the user has audio data playing application software installed on the personal computer, an audio data playing window 21 such as shown in FIG. 3 is displayed, and audio data is played.
There are applications called “jukebox applications” for managing, playing, or writing from the personal computer to other removable disks, contents data thus downloaded from WWW servers or contents data read into the personal computer from CDs or the like.
However, the user must perform multiple operations such as described above, in order to download contents data from the WWW server or to play contents data on the WWW server without downloading.
The downloaded contents data is written to a certain storage area on the hard disk within the personal computer. In order for the user to manage the downloaded contents data with the jukebox application, the downloaded contents data needs to be moved to a predetermined storage area correlated with the jukebox application. Also, in order to use the jukebox application to play contents data or perform processing for writing the contents data from the personal computer to another removable disk, the downloaded contents data must be registered with the jukebox application (so-called importing processing) according to a predetermined method.
That is to say, complicated operations have been necessary for a user to download contents data from WWW servers and use the data. This has impeded contents distribution services using the Internet from spreading.